Los Angeles and Long Beach now sit in the same conversation as the world’s most punishing housing markets, where a typical paycheck barely dents a typical listing price. International affordability rankings that compare home values to local incomes show both cities clustered near the very top of global unaffordability, alongside other California hubs and long‑time outliers like Hong Kong and Singapore. The result is a local housing ladder that functions more like a wall, especially for first‑time buyers.
Those rankings are not just abstract league tables, they describe a daily reality in which households must devote extraordinary shares of income to mortgage payments or give up on ownership altogether. With California’s median home price at $697,000 and several coastal metros far above that, the math simply does not work for much of the middle class. The question now is less whether Los Angeles and Long Beach are expensive, and more how long their economies can thrive if buying into the region remains out of reach for most residents.
How LA and Long Beach climbed into the global unaffordability elite
Los Angeles and Long Beach have long sold themselves as gateways to the California dream, but for would‑be homeowners the dream now comes with a global price tag. A new analysis of housing markets around the world ranks Los Angeles, Long Beach, San Diego and San Jos among the five least affordable cities anywhere for homebuyers, putting Southern California in the same bracket as the most strained markets on the planet. That list is not driven by luxury penthouses alone, it reflects the typical household trying to buy a typical home and finding the numbers do not pencil out.
One reason the rankings are so stark is that they compare home prices to what people actually earn, not to what investors or high‑income newcomers can pay. A survey of global housing costs by Remitly found that California Cities Rank Among World, Least Affordable for Homebuyers, with Los Angeles and Long Beach standing out as especially difficult places for first‑time buyers to gain a foothold. In that same research, the median home price in one California metro was pegged at a staggering $755,000 as of December, underscoring how far local incomes have to stretch just to compete.
Why LA and Long Beach feel worse than other global capitals
On paper, Los Angeles and Long Beach share company with glamorous world capitals that have long been shorthand for high housing costs. Markets like Paris and Singapore are also notorious for tiny flats and towering price‑to‑income ratios, yet they pair that burden with dense transit networks and social housing systems that at least blunt the impact for some residents. By contrast, Los Angeles and Long Beach still lean heavily on car‑centric sprawl, which means a family priced out of central neighborhoods often faces longer commutes and higher transportation costs on top of a steep mortgage…